Back in 2006 I decided to cook all 1293 recipes in "The Gourmet Cookbook." It took a few years, but I made them all! Now I have moved on to the over 1100 recipes in "Gourmet Today." I anticipate several more years of kitchen fun!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

I chose this recipe as part of the All Seafood All The Time plan. I started by removing the meat from cooked king crab legs. I then made a roux of flour and butter, added whole milk and garlic, and simmered, whisking. In a bowl I whisked together egg yolks, sherry, dry mustard, nutmeg, cayenne, and salt. Then I added the milk mixture, poured it into a saucepan, and cooked it to 160 degrees. I stirred in the crabmeat and some chopped parsley and transferred the mixture to ramekins. I stirred together melted butter, fine dry breadcrumbs, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and sprinkled it over the crab. I baked the ramekins in a hot oven until the breadcrumbs browned. This dish was only ok. I had two main issues with it. One, the sherry flavor was much too intense. In fact, it was hard to taste the flavor of the crab through all the sherry. I would definitely halve the amount of sherry if I made it again. My second issue was the texture of the breadcrumbs. The balance of butter and dried breadcrumbs wasn't right and the mixture was pretty soggy even after the dish was baked. Fresh breadcrumbs would have been way better. My special gentleman had a more conceptual complaint. He felt that the crabmeat didn't need a heavy dairy sauce to complement it. He would have rather just eaten the crabmeat dipped in a bit of melted butter (and of course, that would have been easier to prepare!). All that said, the dish didn't taste bad, and I think with some tweaking it could have been pretty good.

Last week's seemingly endless search for shad roe was frustrating at times, but in the end something very positive did come out of it. I had two realizations. One, it is pretty easy to have obscure seafood shipped across the country. And two, there is a seafood market with an extensive selection in Ann Arbor, Michigan (a mere hour from where we live). These two factors combined have made me feel much better about my ability to acquire the seafood I need when we go back to Michigan this summer. Consequently, I may relax the All Seafood All The Time plan a bit. My special gentleman and I have eaten a lot of seafood this term, as have our dear friends who often eat with us. And I think everyone is more than a little tired of it. So while I will continue to cook some seafood while we are here, and I am also going to branch out much more often into the other remaining recipes in The Book. I think we all need a little break from the constant seafood extravaganza!